rain

 

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With thick strokes of ink the sky fills with rain.
Pretending to run for cover but secretly praying for more rain.

Over the echo of the water, I hear a voice saying my name.
No one in the city moves under the quick sightless rain.

The pages of my notebook soak, then curl. I’ve written:
“Yogis opened their mouths for hours to drink the rain.”

The sky is a bowl of dark water, rinsing your face.
The window trembles; liquid glass could shatter into rain.

I am a dark bowl, waiting to be filled.
If I open my mouth now, I could drown in the rain.

I hurry home as though someone is there waiting for me.
The night collapses into your skin. I am the rain.


—Kazim Ali

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some(where

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Somewhere on the road that crosses the spinster river a pilgrim approaches, praying to be the river, the sun, his walking, his barrenness or his thirst.

At dusk he finds the new moon by noticing a circular absence of stars, 

and the river bears children all night long.

—Kazim Ali

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